alphabet-blog-tTyris is the other main character in my novel, Reckless Rescue, and a favourite of mine. I found him much easier to write than Marlee, perhaps because he isn't anything like me at all. Nor is he the typical ‘Alpha Male' that many romance novels seem to favour. He's just an ordinary man. Well, as ordinary as a Captain in the Space Force can be!

Right from the start, it's obvious that he's one of the good guys. Of course, in his world, a world very controlled by the government, doing the right thing doesn't always pay, a fact of which Tyris is painfully aware, and is demonstrated in this quote from the first chapter.

This couldn’t be happening. Not to him. He hadn’t killed or hurt anyone. He’d been trying to do something good. And where had it gotten him? He wiped one hand on his pants, but it still felt damp. The letter slipped from his fingers and fluttered to the floor.

Milandra put down her orange juice and picked up the letter. “There must be a mistake,” she said, skimming the document. “You don’t have a criminal record. I’ll talk to Daddy and get this fixed.”

“It’s not a mistake.” His voice echoed hollowly.

“What?” Milandra’s eyes widened and her hand fluttered to her chest.

“I participated in a protest in college.” Tyris closed his eyes briefly. He didn’t expect Milandra to understand.

“You went to a protest; are you insane?” Milandra stared at him. “Why would you do something like that? What could possibly be important enough for you to risk everything?”

What indeed? “They withdrew the pensions for those who fought in the Off World Wars.” A flicker of anger stirred in his belly at the thought, but he squashed it. He couldn’t afford those feelings—they’d already cost him too much.

“You took part in a protest for that?” Milandra’s voice rose a notch, and Tyris winced. “Do you have any idea what this could mean for us? For me?” She covered her face with her hand. “What will Daddy say? What will the papers say? How could you be so thoughtless, Tyris? Why would you do something so pointless? That’s what we have a Justice Department for! They appealed the decision and reinstated the pensions.”

Because we protested. But he didn’t dare say the words aloud. “They shouldn’t have done it in the first place,” he mumbled. “Those people fought under government orders. They earned those pensions.”

A lot of this story (and the sequel, Reckless Rebellion) is about Tyris fighting to discover whether doing the right thing is worth the risks. And whether his ‘perfect life' was all he thought it was.

All this month I’m participating in the A-Z blogging challenge, writing a blog post for each letter of the alphabet, on every day of the month except Sundays. Check back regularly to see what else I have in store for you.